Another thing Democrats need to learn from The Lincoln Project

[Pacifist Patriot]

By now I am sure there are several posts on the Greatest Page linking to the Susan Collin's ad that was dropped this morning at 7:04 a.m. EDT. It's a thing of beauty. Their two teaser tweets last night were delicious.

But what is equally important to note is that The Press Herald in Portland, ME posted an article about the ad at 7:00 a.m. and updated the article with the embedded tweet some time between 7:04 and 7:29 a.m.

The Lincoln Project may be seen as masters of social media and the evocative video ad, but that isn't where their true genius lies. Let the timing of this sink in. It's masterful, and we'd be insane not to take note.

Link to tweet

ETA: For clarification, down ballot Democrats typically get little to no support or training regarding the broader context in which to drop social media. The majority of the commentary I have seen about the Lincoln Project has focused on the amazing impact of their ads and not how they also dramatically coordinate the drop.

It's not just a matter of creating and posting a phenomenal ad and hoping the impact gives it viral traction. It's not just sending out a press release about the ad. It's about cultivating the contacts and relationships to ensure the press release is used and used in a way you want it to be. It's about determining which media outlets will be the most effective and impactful in spreading the message to a particularly targeted audience. It's about timing the various media pieces to the extent possible prior to publication.

The newspaper posted a story minutes before the ad was actually released. The newspaper is an important one in Maine owned by Maine Today Media - a privately owned publisher of daily and weekly newspapers in Maine, based in the state's largest city, Portland, and includes the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram, the state's largest newspaper.

These are the steps Democrats sometimes skip, take for granted, or are unaware of how it can both amplify and target the message. That part shouldn't get lost in the "wow" factor of the ad itself.

[Funtatlaguy]

1. Concerned. Verklempt. Worried. Bothered. Ohhh, Susan.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. How to send a press release?

[Pacifist Patriot]

3. A wee bit more than that.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

9. Help me out.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

12. "It's about cultivating the contacts and relationships to ensure the press release is used and used

in a way you want it to be. It's about determining which media outlets will be the most effective and impactful in spreading the message to a particularly targeted audience. It's about timing the various media pieces to the extent possible prior to publication."

Which is basic PR. You write a press release saying you're releasing an ad focusing on a local lightning-rod politician, send it to that politician's hometown papers, put a 7 a.m. embargo on it and release the ad as soon as the embargo expires. There's very little cultivation required there.

I mean, obviously it helps to have a good ad and screw-ups happen all the time. But let's not make the mistake of thinking that the Lincoln Project has just delivered a masterstroke, or anything.

[Squinch]

15. Yes. It is basic PR. That's the point.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

17. Oh, I got confused when basic PR was described as "pure genius."

[Pacifist Patriot]

19. Thanks for putting me in my place. Have a nice day.

[MrModerate]

27. The very basic sonnet form...

In the right hands, becomes a work of genius.

These guys are very, very good.

[calimary]

55. And I hope our side LEARNS from them.

We badly need to.

Their side is helping us ... now. Re: trump.

They will NOT be helping us later on.

We HAVE TO learn this. Now. While the teachers are pulling with us. Next time they’ll be back working for the other side again - AGAINST us.

[MrModerate]

57. As a comfort, keep in mind that...

Republicans still have no valuable ideas and a whole bunch of retrogrades pols hanging around their increasingly decrepit tent.

If we can't turn reality into a political advantage, then shame on us.

[Indykatie]

21. The Genius Part to Me Was Telegraphing Yesterday That The Ad Would Drop This Morning

The release of each new LP ad has become something of an "event". Twitter was alight yesterday with folks drooling over the coming ad on Susan Collins. That's probably how the local press knew run a story on the ad so early. I wouldn't be surprised if they already had the ad when their story was posted.

[Squinch]

26. Yes exactly. This ad is nice for us to watch. It is ESSENTIAL that Mainers watch it. The fact

it is highlighted in Maine in multiple media outlets before the drop makes the targeted audience, including people that might not otherwise go looking for it, go look for it.

[Sherman A1]

4. Great ad

Hits the nail on the head.

[Roy Rolling]

5. How to reach people?

Pay million$ to buy ads, or know that public relations and viral sharing are more powerful at influencing an advertising-saturated person?

Even an idiot can sell something by riding on the waves of free media advertising covering the “buzz”. It worked in 2016.

[lagomorph777]

6. You're saying the speed of social media beats traditional press releases?

I'm not a Twit user but it does seem to work.

[Pacifist Patriot]

7. No, that isn't what I'm saying.

[lagomorph777]

8. Ok, I seem to be missing your point - can you elaborate?

Thanks.

[Pacifist Patriot]

11. I edited the OP for clarification.

[lagomorph777]

13. OK thanks for the media education.

So the point is who you roll it out to, and how you coordinate with them, and time it to their cycles. Is it also about timing relative to news events? For example, did something happen in Maine or Collins' campaign, which triggered the ad?

[Pacifist Patriot]

31. I honestly don't know if something happened in Maine or with the Collins' campaign...

to inspire the Lincoln Project to target her on this specific date. I'll admit I've not paid that close attention lately.

[ancianita]

10. Timing and rollout.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. Counter-propaganda works when immediate, clear, on point, & targets audience that got propaganda

The Lincoln Project knows this because they frequently hit all four aspects.

When it is backed up by alerting the media (possibly via teasers you mention), it has extra impact.

[Squinch]

16. Not sure why people are resisting your message on this, but you are absolutely right.

[Pacifist Patriot]

18. Thank you.

Yes, people who know PR know this is standard stuff, so I'm not surprised they are scratching their heads over why I would bother pointing this out.

But many Democrats running for office do not know PR and we, as a party, do a poor job educating and executing standard PR stuff effectively. I have attended countless candidate and campaign training events over the years and have yet to encounter this topic handled well, if it is handled at all. I never understood that.

[Squinch]

20. That is painfully obvious, and we only have to look at the Lincoln Project and the splash they

have made to understand the truth of it.

I have often said it here, but for some reason people think that amounts to speaking against Democrats. In fact is the exact opposite.

We have a weakness. That weakness is the reason many still view the Republicans as the party of fiscal responsibility when in fact Republicans dependably blow up the economy and let Democrats deal with the fallout. That weakness is the reason many actually fear caravans of criminals, or Antifa, or the idea that stormtroopers will come and take your guns, when in fact the criminals are the republican politicians, the white supremacists actually exist and are actually killing people, and the republican led stormtroopers are actually coming and taking your neighbors and children.

Basic PR is the way to overcome that weakness. It's the way to show that we are the solution to the fears of the easily led. If we would work with that, we could be much stronger.

[CaptainTruth]

37. +1000

[JudyM]

43. R's excel at controlling the narrative. Usually with deceptive messaging.

We think the truth should speak for itself but clearly it doesn’t.

[BComplex]

51. Well said. I totally agree.

[smirkymonkey]

24. +1000

[PurgedVoter]

42. Advertising is easier to understand if you are a sociopath

Modern advertising is a bit like brainwashing. For proof I present Fox News and their audience. So right off the bat, half of the really good advertising methods are to a good Dem, unthinkable.

[drmeow]

45. I don't think it is so much resisting

as not having background knowledge to understand. I kinda got it before reading the clarification but the additional clarification took me from "if you mean what I think you mean then, yeah, I guess so" to "ah - now I get it and, yeah, I agree." Sometimes it's easy to forget that people's knowledge sets can be very different and what's seems crystal clear to the expert is really opaque to someone naive on the topic!

[MrModerate]

22. aka, "When you're hot, you're hot."

As a Dem, I don't want to face these guys if they ever get a sane Republican party to coalesce around them.

[Hortensis]

25. :) Agree. But if everything goes as we need it to,

though, we will. But that's good. It's how democracy has to work again if we're not to be the generations who finally destroyed it.

On the plus side, they wouldn't have Democratic versions of Trump and McConnell and company providing material-on-fire that they just needed to point a camera at. And since new leadership can't control everything in a democracy, we'd be the ones with lots of corrupt Republican relicts to focus the cameras on, including judges.

[MrModerate]

28. Not to mention that Dems need a principled opposition...

To avoid becoming flabby.

[Pacifist Patriot]

30. No kidding!

[Hortensis]

23. Like great generals always prepared and ready for attack.

"Corruption, criminality, cruelty."

Three words anyone can take from this and use.

[WinstonSmith4740]

29. Been saying this for years...

These are the steps Democrats sometimes skip, take for granted, or are unaware of how it can both amplify and target the message.

The Democrats need to drop the political "consultants" and hire some damn elite salespeople. They've got great ideas, but don't seem to know how to get them across, and consultants don't know how to do it either.

[sammythecat]

58. I think you're exactly right on this

We need to convince these Trumpers not that they're stupid for being so wrong, but that they're smart for seeing how Trump has failed them.

[marble falls]

32. And remember: On January 21, they start dropping these on us.

[dlk]

33. A comprehensive, well-thought our approach is usually most effective

If Dems can learn & improve outreach by taking a page from someone else’s playbook, why not? Our country’s house is being burned to the ground. No one can deny Republicans are very successful with messaging. Any effective communication methods should be at least considered.

[GusBob]

34. Another aspect of the timing

They are throwing punches every day on topics that are fresh ( for example the Russian bounty ad)

They do have it easy though in that DT is a scandal machine and such a shitty president that can't seem yo stop making mistakes or keep his mouth shut

lots of material to work with

[Pacifist Patriot]

35. There's a definite advantage to having material that writes itself.

[DIVINEprividence]

36. This is an excellent post and spot on

I think the Biden camp is well aware of these strategies and they have some pretty sophisticated marketing folks on their staff. I must admit I was concerned how they would campaign during the Trump Pandemic but I have been pleasantly surprised and impressed so far

[CaptainTruth]

38. I've said it before & I'll say it again, the Dem party (in general) is not good at messaging.

We do all kinds of great things for the American people, but we don't tell them about it, so most people don't know. We don't tell people (in an effective way that reaches average Americans) how the things we do benefit them & their loved ones. We let Republicans define us with their messaging, to our great detriment.

I love my party but the lack of effective messaging has disappointed me for decades, especially when we have so many GOOD & FACTUAL messages we could be delivering ... yet we don't, we allow Republicans to paint us with lies.

I frustrates the heck out of me. We can do all kinds of great & wonderful things that help Americans, but if they don't know about it, & all they see are messages from the GOP saying the whole country will be on fire if Biden wins, we're losing the battle for their hearts & minds, & losing votes.

[DIVINEprividence]

39. Democrats can be too pc and nice at times

I will say this about the Bernie wing of the party. I do give them credit for putting on the brass knuckles and fighting dirty and cutting to brass tax. They have Republican style message discipline. I think it will make us stronger and more effective in communication. We have to have our heads rule over our hearts at this point. There is a lot of passion, a lot of emotion, a lot of anger. This must always be tempered and channeled toward the ultimate goal VICTORY and filtered through the lense of what enhances our messaging and what doesn’t. “Defund the Police”, an example of absolute piss poor messaging

[PatrickforO]

40. You must be experiencing a bit of exasperation from some of the posts below. The LP

people are in fact quite skilled at when and how to release damaging, even devastating, ads about political opponents. These are the same people who did it to us over the last decade or two.

But PR is like a trade. If you're good at what you do, it looks easy, but it took you years to learn how to do it. Just anybody can't. Our message, for instance, is difficult to get down to a catchy message that brings people on board. Unfortunately, high schools don't teach civics anymore, really. Or geography. Or the real (not watered down by the 'christians' on the TX School Board) history. They don't learn rhetoric or debate. They do not learn logic. High schools don't even teach keyboarding anymore. People have to learn that on their own if they want a decent job.

So like me, instead of talking about getting rid of the current shareholder primacy model by expanding the fiduciary responsibility of C-Suite officers in publicly held companies to a wider group of stakeholders, we need a better message. Because people stare like deer in the lights.

When I talk about monetary and fiscal policy, people stare like deer in the lights.

Fortunately, Biden's people know this, and they have condensed his message into a three-word slogan, "Build Back Better."

That's good messaging.

But back to the LP people. Right now they are on our side because they want to scrape the crazy base away, or at least make them crawl back under their rocks so the Wall Street neocon/neolib people can take back over and try to stabilize the current end-stage capitalist model so it can last just a bit longer. After all, our treasury isn't quite empty yet, and the oligarchs are hungry for more stimulus, while victims are just hungry and sick.

[DenverJared]

41. I completely agree with you

Astonishing that many missed your point.

The genius is in coordinating the various pieces of the puzzle ... building anticipation and then dropping it in such a way that it will get maximum exposure in the targeted audience. They created a newsworthy scenario so it was picked up and distributed by the target media.

Bravo!

[drmeow]

44. The right in this country

has long been better at propaganda than the left.

[BComplex]

46. Ok Pacifist Patriot! We hire YOU!!!

You are now the prime candidate for our party's messaging guru! We need this position worse than most people know!

[Pacifist Patriot]

47. .

[BComplex]

48. Is that a "no"?

[Pacifist Patriot]

49. Knock it off please.

Thanks.

[BComplex]

53. I just got back here with time to read the entire thread.

I had dropped in to check my post replies, but hadn't had time to read a lot of threads. I often just read the first post, and then reply to it, until I can get back. So I was pretty upset yesterday when I saw this reply from you. I had meant no snarkiness at all to your original post when I said you are now the new messaging guru. I actually thought your original post was spot on. We have really needed a messaging specialist for 30 years, so my post was meant more as cheering you on.

It wasn't until I read the whole thread that I realized some people were less than supportive, and I was really shocked. I can't believe there has ever been a doubt that the democratic party has been so weak on getting our message out...THAT, to me, is the one thing the democratic party has failed at, and your original post said it better than I've said it on a few thousand posts I've posted on the topic (under a different name) since 2001 or 2002.

Sorry if I originally sounded as if I was mocking you. I meant the opposite of mockery. I meant only excitement that someone finally nailed the problem.

[Pacifist Patriot]

54. Thanks, I appreciate that.

Sadly, there are some folks here over the years who do make replies like that with all snarkiness and mockery intended. And I actually get where they are coming from. As someone who was in a volunteer leadership position for a non-profit for years, I had more than my fair share of members who were quick to point out the organization's weaknesses while never stepping up to the plate to help address them. Mentally I was thinking, "well if you can spot the problem, be part of the damn solution!" So yeah, I get the impulse and the attitude.

For what it's worth, I do volunteer with local candidates to help them with their PR, messaging, and social media. The sad part is how many have turned down my offer to help thinking they can handle it on their own. Because any damned fool can tweet and post on Facebook, right? And then they go on to demonstrate they haven't a clue. It can get quite frustrating. Again, I understand their perspective so I don't push. I move on to the candidates who do want help.

[BComplex]

56. I didn't realize you had actually worked on the ground with this.

"Contributions or gifts to PolitiFact, which is part of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Poynter Institute, are tax deductible. More Info. I would like to contribute."

Just pulled this off a Google search to see what business form the Lincoln Project has. I have absolutely NO experience with working in non-profits. I used to run a regular small corporation (just 10 to 12 employees), which has a different financial and legal requirements structure.

However, if the Lincoln Project can raise money for their project, I don't see why such a group could not form for our message, as well. Just thinking of how much enthusiasm the Democratic primary campaigns had, with support and donors, there should be no reason our side couldn't pull something like this together. I mean, for real. The Lincoln Project was started with 3 or 4 disgruntled conservatives, and a few donors. And our side, for the most part, has a much better product to sell to the masses than their side has. And we have something else the other side doesn't have; we have a genuine sense of humor. You look at twitter, and all their side has is hate and bitterness and, well, lies. One of the things I love most about DU posts and tweets from our side is how clever the liberal side truly is!

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if we have the talent right here on DU to start such a group.

[Wednesdays]

50. WTF?

I mean seriously, WTF?